A review by Saurabh Agrawal;
Finally completed The Virtuals. The Virtuals is awesome, and not just virtually but actually. Back in 90s RC used to release a set every month. Each set had either a Dhruva or a nagraj digest, sometimes a multi hero digest. Then there were fighter toads too. Basically Anupam Sinha sir was coming up with minimum 1-2 digests every month. I always wondered how is it possible for a man to think, write and illustrate a comic every month. will there ever be a day when he will be short of a story, when he will have no story to tell, but then he came up with this and then he has negatives in pipeline and the sequel to Virtuals has already been announced. No. Anupam sir will never be short of a story to tell.
I'm not a very avid novel reader. The only novels that I've read before are The Godfather, dan brown's Robert Langdon trilogy and Chetan bhagat's books. So this is my first sci-fi novel. Actually it's not sci-fi. There is no science in it. It's not even philosophical because I find that stuff preachy and boring and it wasn't boring, neither it tried to preach. It wasn't religious coz I never came across any words like Hindu or Muslim or Christian throughout the story. It's sort of a 'thought-stirring' fiction. Watching The Monk's actions throughout the story I wondered, is God really so evil? Why couldn't god create a perfect world? Is God selfish? Does he make us suffer so that we can pray and follow him? So that we always feel that we need HIM? I mean who would need or remember God in a perfect world? The story is so very Indian. It has roots in ancient Indian science of yoga and meditation. Indriyan, Chetna, Conscience. Kuch din pehle main apne nana se bat kar raha tha. I respect him very much. He is really intelligent and a well read man. He always share his wisdom with me whenever we are together on any topic he finds the will to talk on that day. Be it my career, future, or family matters, handling relationships, be it humanity, religion, philosophy or history. On that particular day he was wearing his religious/philosophical hat. He said to me, beta I don't believe in God. Ye itna vishal brahmand aise hi to nai bana hoga. koi energy, koi shakti to ise chala rahi hai. But Ye ram, krushna, Allah, etc., these are just figment of our imagination. We can't worship thin air. We need something solid, something we can see and touch to worship, so we created God's images and shapes acc. To our liking. Main to ye maanta hun ki raam, Krishna kuch nahi hai. Bas ek vishal chetna hai. Is chetna ka koi chehra nahi hai. Aur hum Sab jeevon me bhi usi chetna ka ek ansh hai. Aur Marne k bad wo chetna apne sharir se nikal kar us vishal chetna me sama jati hai. I was bummed. I was midway through The Virtuals then, I was like, whoa, nana is saying exactly the same thing that I read in the Virtuals. At the same time my thoughts went out to all those old religious tv shows jahan Bhagwan raam ya Krishna kisi paapi ko maarte the and then unke sharir me se ek lau nikal kar Bhagwan k sharir me sama jati thi. The Higher Conscience. The Virtuals definitely was thought stirring. But it didn't impose those thoughts on us. It isn't preachy. It is an interesting fictional entertainer which also stirs our thoughts.
Coming to the story itself, I liked every sequence and scene in it. If I sit and try to explain which sequences I liked and what I liked in it, I guess my review would become 400 pages long. So I won't attempt that. All I would say is that the explanation to every fight sequence was so vivid, I could imagine it happening inside my own head. I realised, that this is how Dhruva and Mahamanav fight with each other. Anupam sir used to illustrate those mental fights in Dhruva comics, now he vividly and expertly explained that stuff without any illustration. Now I understand that if Mahamanav hits Dhruva with a mental fist, it doesn't mean that the mental fist is actually visible. He just feels it inside his head. That anupam sir has to draw that fist for illustration purpose is a different thing. I especially loved the sequence involving Malt Wisney.
I liked all the characters. I liked Kish the most. His characters had the most shades and layers. Kish's mysterious appearances and interactions with Sonya was my favourite part of the story. The way the story was shaping up, I was scared that Kish would either turn villainous or probably die. I kept praying don't do either of that. I liked Druk too. I hope they don't get overshadowed by Peat in Omni. I hope they both get nice and lengthy part in Omni. If a movie is ever made on The Virtuals, I could imagine ranbir kapur playing Kish and Hrithik playing Druk.
Earlier during Kulawa and Peat confrontation, I felt that why did he have to write a novel for it. He could have very well shown the same fight in a Dhruva comic. But as I went on, I realised that the canvas of the story was too big to be contained in a 60 page comic or even a 4 parter comic series. I wasn't really happy that anupam sir stopped working on Dhruva for writing a novel, but now I'm happy that it all culminated to the Virtuals. Now I've both Dhruva comics as well as a great entertaining novel. Now I've no issues with Anupam sir working on Omni. In fact I'm looking forward to The Omni.
Finally completed The Virtuals. The Virtuals is awesome, and not just virtually but actually. Back in 90s RC used to release a set every month. Each set had either a Dhruva or a nagraj digest, sometimes a multi hero digest. Then there were fighter toads too. Basically Anupam Sinha sir was coming up with minimum 1-2 digests every month. I always wondered how is it possible for a man to think, write and illustrate a comic every month. will there ever be a day when he will be short of a story, when he will have no story to tell, but then he came up with this and then he has negatives in pipeline and the sequel to Virtuals has already been announced. No. Anupam sir will never be short of a story to tell.
I'm not a very avid novel reader. The only novels that I've read before are The Godfather, dan brown's Robert Langdon trilogy and Chetan bhagat's books. So this is my first sci-fi novel. Actually it's not sci-fi. There is no science in it. It's not even philosophical because I find that stuff preachy and boring and it wasn't boring, neither it tried to preach. It wasn't religious coz I never came across any words like Hindu or Muslim or Christian throughout the story. It's sort of a 'thought-stirring' fiction. Watching The Monk's actions throughout the story I wondered, is God really so evil? Why couldn't god create a perfect world? Is God selfish? Does he make us suffer so that we can pray and follow him? So that we always feel that we need HIM? I mean who would need or remember God in a perfect world? The story is so very Indian. It has roots in ancient Indian science of yoga and meditation. Indriyan, Chetna, Conscience. Kuch din pehle main apne nana se bat kar raha tha. I respect him very much. He is really intelligent and a well read man. He always share his wisdom with me whenever we are together on any topic he finds the will to talk on that day. Be it my career, future, or family matters, handling relationships, be it humanity, religion, philosophy or history. On that particular day he was wearing his religious/philosophical hat. He said to me, beta I don't believe in God. Ye itna vishal brahmand aise hi to nai bana hoga. koi energy, koi shakti to ise chala rahi hai. But Ye ram, krushna, Allah, etc., these are just figment of our imagination. We can't worship thin air. We need something solid, something we can see and touch to worship, so we created God's images and shapes acc. To our liking. Main to ye maanta hun ki raam, Krishna kuch nahi hai. Bas ek vishal chetna hai. Is chetna ka koi chehra nahi hai. Aur hum Sab jeevon me bhi usi chetna ka ek ansh hai. Aur Marne k bad wo chetna apne sharir se nikal kar us vishal chetna me sama jati hai. I was bummed. I was midway through The Virtuals then, I was like, whoa, nana is saying exactly the same thing that I read in the Virtuals. At the same time my thoughts went out to all those old religious tv shows jahan Bhagwan raam ya Krishna kisi paapi ko maarte the and then unke sharir me se ek lau nikal kar Bhagwan k sharir me sama jati thi. The Higher Conscience. The Virtuals definitely was thought stirring. But it didn't impose those thoughts on us. It isn't preachy. It is an interesting fictional entertainer which also stirs our thoughts.
Coming to the story itself, I liked every sequence and scene in it. If I sit and try to explain which sequences I liked and what I liked in it, I guess my review would become 400 pages long. So I won't attempt that. All I would say is that the explanation to every fight sequence was so vivid, I could imagine it happening inside my own head. I realised, that this is how Dhruva and Mahamanav fight with each other. Anupam sir used to illustrate those mental fights in Dhruva comics, now he vividly and expertly explained that stuff without any illustration. Now I understand that if Mahamanav hits Dhruva with a mental fist, it doesn't mean that the mental fist is actually visible. He just feels it inside his head. That anupam sir has to draw that fist for illustration purpose is a different thing. I especially loved the sequence involving Malt Wisney.
I liked all the characters. I liked Kish the most. His characters had the most shades and layers. Kish's mysterious appearances and interactions with Sonya was my favourite part of the story. The way the story was shaping up, I was scared that Kish would either turn villainous or probably die. I kept praying don't do either of that. I liked Druk too. I hope they don't get overshadowed by Peat in Omni. I hope they both get nice and lengthy part in Omni. If a movie is ever made on The Virtuals, I could imagine ranbir kapur playing Kish and Hrithik playing Druk.
Earlier during Kulawa and Peat confrontation, I felt that why did he have to write a novel for it. He could have very well shown the same fight in a Dhruva comic. But as I went on, I realised that the canvas of the story was too big to be contained in a 60 page comic or even a 4 parter comic series. I wasn't really happy that anupam sir stopped working on Dhruva for writing a novel, but now I'm happy that it all culminated to the Virtuals. Now I've both Dhruva comics as well as a great entertaining novel. Now I've no issues with Anupam sir working on Omni. In fact I'm looking forward to The Omni.
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